I'll Cover You
by hariboo-smirks
Summary: A small moment between Daniel and Vala sometime in the future.


**A/N: **Written for the **dvexchange** on LJ for **dannysgirlsg1**.

* * *

**  
I'll Cover You**

"_Live in my house,_

_I'll be your shelter_

_Just pay me back with a thousand sweet kisses_

_Be my lover _

_And I'll cover you." _

_- Rent, "I'll Cover You"_

While I am sitting crossed legged on the bed, he's shrugging his favorite dress shirt on. It's a sky blue button down, which I'm sure Samantha helped him picked out or gave him for his birthday, because I've seen the pictures from the early days and while he most definitely has a better fashion sense now, I can hardly picture him going into Armani. Armani Exchange, yes. But Collection, not on his cute ass. The shirt is most definitely a gift.

But that's not the point, or anywhere near the point's orbit. He is shrugging on his favorite and best dress shirt and then he will be grabbing his jacket and bag. He is heading to what will without a doubt be an extremely boring budgetary meeting in Washington on which General Landry and Samantha are accompanying him. Personally I would go, but due to my last trip to DC for a similar meeting, I've been banned from all future meetings in which the future of the SGC's budget hangs in the balance.

So here I am sitting and watching him get ready to go. It has been such a while since we've taken a trip not together and I am rather jealous. Of the idea of going on a trip, not the actual trip, no amount of love I have for him will ever make me wish I were going to that meeting with him. Or maybe I would if we didn't actually go to the meeting and just hung out together. I hate to admit this, but I think I'm getting somewhat slightly used to having him around all the time and worst of all I'm pretty sure I don't hate it at all.

That was a surprise. After all my years of being alone in the galaxy I had never thought I'd ever find some that would hold my attention with such a purity like things did before Qetesh – after being host to a Goa'uld there is not much purity left in yourself, least of all the world.

But he did. The curiosity he awaken in me was not greedy or lustful, but pure. A bright shiny jewel that grew in my stomach and sought him out. I could not ignore it.

Sometimes I wonder if I should tell him just what I went through to get that tablet that allowed me the excuse to come to Earth. It's not that it's a secret or anything similar, but the subject has never come. It's funny, but I like answering his question, and what's even worse I don't lie to him about them. There are secrets between us, but we both know that should we ask we would not lie. Somehow that's more important to us than the actual questions.

Now, it's been years I've lived on Earth and honestly, I thought by now I would have gotten bored of this whole shebang.

Shebang – I love that word, it was on the slang word a day calendar that Teal'c gave me for Christmas.

I haven't though, gotten bored of the whole thing – much to my surprise. I haven't gotten at all bored of being here, on Earth, and working at the SGC. Sure, sometimes I want to smack the lot of them, especially when they think they're better equipped to deal with some of the less savory characters we've come across. Then, especially when they give me those looks after I've had to bail us out using some of my more questionable skills, I feel like smacking every single one of them, but that usually passes.

I had originally thought I would only last on Earth until after the Ori were dealt with. Then the guilt I still felt, that knot that had grown in my stomach since that day I was burnt alive on Van Eger would dissipate and I wouldn't feel the need to stay anymore.

Quite the opposite happened.

After, I felt like there was nowhere else I _could_ be.

I had changed, no sorry, not changed – people don't change as much as they think, they grow, they being to understand things better, but very rarely truly change. I hadn't changed, but I had been altered, by what I saw, by what I had experienced. It happened so slowly and quietly that part of me hadn't even noticed it. Before I used to be colder. Pirate. Con-woman. Thief. I never killed without absolutely needing too. I never stole when I didn't have to—okay that's not quite the truth, but a girl does have to keep her skills sharp, but I wouldn't have helped someone out if it didn't benefit me in a way. I wouldn't have gone out of my way to do the right thing if it had meant losing my loot. Back then everything was a scam, had an angle, a way to profit.

Looking back, I was someone I wish I had never been, but survival sometimes outweighs morality.

After the Ori were dealt with, I couldn't go back to being that Vala, but where did this new Vala belong? The base was perfectly fine though drab – grey might be the new black, but that didn't mean all the walls has to be the color – still I had always felt enclosed in it. Birds aren't meant to be in cages, but people still put them there. People still wanted to keep me in a cage, but fortunately I have very fantastic friends that are very much about freedom.

After I lived by myself for a spell and then not to very many people's shock I moved in with Daniel. I still don't know why they weren't shocked, because I certainly was. A little. Kind of. Okay, not really, but it makes Daniel feel better to think that not _everybody_ knew about us, when they so obviously did.

It's funny, in an odd way not funny way, but I had really thought I would have got gotten bored with him by now. Especially since I learned what he really does – an archaeologist. He looks for treasure from ancient worlds and doesn't even keep them or ask for money. Sometimes I wonder which one of us is really wonko. But I understand – for him it's not about the glory but the discovery. I think that's one of the reasons I love him so.

He's pure. There is a purity in him that, no matter how may he is drag through the mud, remains. I love that purity – I would kill to protect that purity. I know others that would too. I know he doesn't believe he still has it, but that's why it's so precious.

Now this is not to say he's boring. In fact he's completely the contrary, all jokes aside. He's always been a bundle of surprises, after all except for one other archeologist, they all seem to be rather dull and the one exception to the rule happens to be fictional. But he is anything but dull.

He shines. His passion for his work, for his friends – his family, this world, this galaxy shines out him and I think I am rather lucky to be allowed so close to it. I'm lucky that he finally let me in, because if my walls and defense mechanisms were forged in steel, his were forged in naquahdah. That's probably why we clashed so much at first. Why it took us so long to get to here and now.

We didn't break through the each others' walls, not exactly. Sure we were close and grew closer, snuck in parts of each other, but being forged of steel and naquahdah our walls would not fall. But then rather of than trying to break the walls down we open the doors in them and let each other in.

And now I'm sitting waiting for him to get ready for a trip I have been banned from. Rather unfair in my opinion, but I guess it means me, Teal'c and Cam will be having a Star Wars marathon. Those two really get into their mock light saber fights. On a separate note I still cannot believe Teal'c compared my pregnancy to Darth Vader's, though Adria did play the part of bad guy very well, although unfortunately for her and me, unlike Anakin, she never made up for her actions.

But that's all in the past and as hard as it was I've moved on. Sometimes I think about having another child, but neither of us is ready. Maybe soon. Right now he has a trip.

He is slipping his leather jacket, from me, on and turns to me smirking as if he knows exactly what I'm thinking about. I wouldn't doubt that he is.

Smiling at him, I hop off the bed and beginning straightening his shirt that doesn't actually need straightening, but for some reason all couples do it. I straighten his shirt; he brushes the hair that wasn't falling out of my face. We're a couple, sometimes that still blindsides me.

"You going to miss me?" He is smiling and I know what he is fishing for.

"Desperately, darling." I lean in and kiss him, it's soft and sweet and when I pull away I gently bite on his lower lip then soothe it with my tongue. A reminder of what he's leaving behind in dear old Colorado Springs.

I hear the soft sound in the back of his throat and smile. I maybe not be the same space pirate that kicked his ass on the _Prometheus_, but I am still the same woman.

We hear the taxi honk, and he grabs his bag and leaves the room.

I follow him until the door and lean against it, sighing gently. "Love you, call me."

"Love you too. I will." He kisses me again, its deeper than the last and for the briefest second we both forget that he needs to be leaving. My hands curl into his hips and his thumb is stroking the skin beneath my ear. There is a magnetic pull to each other and it's only when the yellow car honks again that we finally separate. My eyes flicker to his lips and I lick my own. His eyes follow my movements and with a strangled groan he gives a quick and intense kiss and then I watch as he rushes into the yellow car.

I stay watching the car until I can no longer see, then I head back in.

After I close the door and sigh. I should hate what an absolute _girl_ I've become. The girl who begins to miss her boyfriend almost right away, the girl who likes spending the weekends curled up with said boyfriend instead of planning her next heist. But then I remember I'm also the girl who can out drink her boyfriend by an absolutely ridiculous margin, can kick his and several other asses, and saves the galaxy on an almost monthly basis, so I guess it's not all bad. I've always considered myself unique anyways.

As the phone rings I go to pick it up. It's him. I smile.

"You know darling, as much as I want to join the mile high club…" The laugh the that leaves my mouth tinkles around me like wind chimes and I know he's smiling too. The phone call isn't quick at all, we talk all the way to the airport and when he finally has to let me go, I still smile. I hang up and breathe in the bright air of our home, always full of him.

He's gone but he never really leaves me and when I leave I'm never really gone.


End file.
